Oh yes the Pez

So I am taking the Demeng class on making Pez Totems. I think I need some personal instruction. I have been working on some of these since day 1.. here they are....(oh and none are done)

These are the most recent .. just started tonight. They are looking ok. I think I need to focus on less monstery pez. The one on the left was a little chikidee duck and the left was Kermnit.. I kept his smile.

 

On the left is Skeleton Head. Due to the way his head is postioned you really don't get to see him too clearly. He needs work. He has a milagros on his chest, skeleton arms and he is holding a tiny skeleton head. He used to be Kermit.

On the right is the back of my skeleton head.. he has some very cool colors and textures going on.

This guy is devilish. I don't know why his eyes photograph white.. its kind of creepy cause they are really brown/red like the rest of his face.

This is a close up on his horns.. I think they look pretty cool. He used to be a jack-o-latern pez.

This guy looks a lot different then the photo. I tried taking it several times. The paint must be reflective, but its almost like the camera is showing you the underlayers of the paint rather then the too coat.. which is purplish red. He reminds me of that movie Beetlejuice. He used to be Frosty the Snowman Pez.

 

I know none of these are looking to grand but hopefully in time they will be.

Journal.. its crazy

I guess there are some people  who have no trouble keeping up with their blogs, I am not one of them. If someone asked me when is the last time I posted I would have said about 3 weeks ago.. but alas it has been 3 months.

I am going to have to blame my lack of bloginship on Hurricane Sandy. It was a very bad time for us and it seemed like even when it was over, I was still going on in my head  And mind you nothing tragic happened to us. No real damage to speak of, just no power for ten days and it was freezing every day. That last day night was a doozy though I was all bundled up in front of the fire, it was 53 degrees in my living room. I just wanted a cup of tea or anything hot, and then suddenly the lights came on. I cried. I feel like such a big baby. I have friends who have lost their homes and cars and me... I was just too cold for too long. Plus there was this incident with a sweater at the firehouse... won't even go there now. 
But the whole outage, it was expensive. We couldn't keep any refriegerator food, the fridge was the warmest spot in the house. No stove, and people keep telling you to do stupid things for food, like cook it and store it outside. It was too cold and there are animals out there! Geeze we can't even have an outdoor pond without the raccoons taking up arms. We were able to get hot food after the second day, roads were being cleared and we could use our cell phones if we drove about a mile, but it was oh so awful. I have not wanted to sit in front of a fireplace since the blackout ended, I never want to smell smoke again.

So now I am getting back to doing artwork. I worked on my journal again, still not feeling it but here is what I did.

 I've been heavily into stapling lately.. not sure why but I suspect I am letting out a bit of anger. The above are mostly stamps and such that came in a recent swap I hosted. But I had also bought these advertising pins on ebay recently and I thought they would look swell in a collage... and they do. You can almost see them on the left side next to the old man.

Yep.. more stapling. The card was a little add on gift from the swap I just did, its lovely card. I felt like " mis laying" them.. thats why they are placed a bit oddly.

Ah.. crazy wrecked journal part 12? lol

I have done a few wrecked journals before now with online groups and with assorted others but I started a new one with a freind last week. I did the cover and a few pages.. thought I would post em here.

This is my favorite pages. They are butterfly wings (duh) that are pages themselves. They have shadow wings underneath that are a whole other entity in themselves. I am thinking of finding some glorius quote or poem of freedom etc to write on those lovely wings. And, perhaps another quote to write on the shadows, about living in the shadow.

looks better in person...at least I think so. But it does not matter because this is a wrecked journal. Its not about making pretty, its about making!

And why are my pictures lying on their sides? Because for some strange reason blogger won't let me flip em over yet... maybe later they will. At the moment it won't even let me edit my text, (hence the these this problem above).. better be extra careful what I type.

 

Mini Art Journals, I can make 4 for a dollar

 

 

I buy lots of composition note books during the off season for as little as a quarter at walmart and other stores. (I even recycle used ones into journals, the used ones, filled with writing and other tidbits are a great starting backdrop for art work.) 

I made about 8 mini books today, and this is how. First I took a second book and used it as a template. I place it roughly halfway down, draw a line with a pen and careful copied the corner as well. I reversed the top book and drew the other curved corner.  It does not have to be perfect, halfway etc. When you go to cut the book on your saw keeping it too this line is a challenge, but chances are it will be fine no matter how you do it.

 

Next you will need a scroll saw and some masking tape. Tape the edge of the book closed by the triangle on both sides. Cut into the triangle holding the book firmly down, just till you meet the line where the other side of triangle forms. Then cut into the other side of the triangle. This time you can continue cutting straight down through the book. If you don't do it this way its impossible to trim the corner later on the saw.

 

When you are done you will have a few mini notebooks for whatever you need. I use them to also keep a work diary as well as information of professional contacts. And yes you will want to decorate the covers!

 

Made this one for a little friend who will be visiting me next week. Not happy about the ties on either one, hopefully find a more appropriate fiber soon.
 

I started decorating this one using purchased paper (so unlike me) but it was so pretty. These papers come from Michaels 6"x 6" designer paper pad with 24 sheets. I barely used 3 to do the back and front. The paper is reversal, has lovely prints on both sides.

I added tissue tape to all the edges to finish it off, and a few decorations and one of those hard to find posts to use as a closure, but may add more later. This book seems a tad light on deco for me.  

 

I will then be gluing 2 to 3 pages together using medium (or elmers) to make them thicker, and using either gessos, paints or papers to cover lines as needed. (Sometimes I just collage and the paper does no need to be thicker) I like seeing some lines, so its not a must do for me. This handy dandy journal will not fit in my litle traveling artist bag, and is great for making for clients to use in program. I used to give them large compostion note books, I think these smaller ones will be even less threatening (if thats even possible) than those.  

 

Re-cycled greeting cards into Journal.. Simple!

I saw this technique on youtube somewhere, thought it was cool. I tend to save all the thousands of greeting cards I get and its nice to do something with them. You know when you buy greeting cards at the drugstore they really add up over time, and that makes it hard for me to throw them out! My mother sends me the most cards, any holiday, any reason. So, I think of these cards as my inheritance.

They are made on such sturdy paper and many of the images are lovely.
On youtube you can find the same tutorial I did at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyi3Ve93We4

But, basically I covered all inside writing with paint and collaged the fronts of all the cards. If there was an image I liked, I kept it out! The cover looked complicated but it wasn't and neither was the binding. This is pretty simple. Next time I will make it to preserve all those lovely cards from family and friends that I just want to keep in a book.

Here is some pictures!  This is made with greeting cards, paper scraps, elmers, craft paint, tissue tape (1 dollar at AC Moore) and embroidery floss.

The cover is still boring, haven't gotten up to decorating it yet!

This is one of the pages, I tend to use quotes of some sort since I love so many and find them inspiring.

This quote was chosen as I am having a hard time looking at restraining myself from posting about various political views on FB. I need to look at it often.

Yes its childlike and not written well, and thats ok. Art does not have to be perfect, close to perfect or any where near perfect.

Trying to find creativity... Mosaic Vase

I am having a real dry spell it seems lately. I don't seem to feel like doing much but I know I need to, so I determined the way to bring me out of it was to do mossaic. Mosaic is a tension reliever for me nand this vase is my end result. Its a vase my mother gave me years ago, she had purchased it for a few dollars at Woolworths. She used to buy lots of gifts at these stores that are really about giving a gift rather than about buying something a person wants or needs. So she would come over frequently, and always have many gifts in her hands. It was overwhelming with the amount of items she would show up with, and kind of makes you a horder if you hold on to all of them. The problem of getting rid of them all is that its a gift from your mother! This vase I kept though because it had a great shape but I didn't care much for the pheasant on it.

The tiles are irregular van goghs I purchased online from Happycraftn's Mosaic Supplies. I used elmers glue to adhere them and  "Premixed Ceramic Tile Adhesive and Grout" from Home Depot to grout it. The tiles are very cool because they are very light weight, I also did the same on top of a small stool and the only added weight was from the grout.

I also added a few glass pieces (dollar store) and half marbles (happy crftns).. although I should have added many more.  I also didn't really photograph the best angle!

So.. this mossaic is not very creative but it helped get me out of my funk a tiny bit.

Mini home-made clip it

This is my home-made clip it. I saw this somewhere on the net and its quite handy. These things are pricey to buy, although I did see one at Michaels for about 28 bucks, mine is more charming and cost me a buck since all I had to buy was the lampshade.

I made mine with an old candlestick, a tiny lampshade, a cork and some paper clips.  My bling, charms etc go in tiny bags that I clip on with large paper clips... the smaller ones do not work well. I like this because it sits on my desk with many things that I am always looking for. I still have tons of supplies all around me in boxes and such, this is just to have some things handy so I don't have to dig.

I picked up two old wooden lamps on the street with  beautiful shades, may make a floor or table clip with one of them. It would be much larger and would be able to hold large papers and things like that. I could be so organized! And if I actually had a practice space that I could keep things in all the time, it would be perfect there as well. I would gut the lamp, replace it with a wooden dowel. You want the lampshade to be able to turn and not tip off. There are lots of tutorials on the net how to do this, go witht the simplest!

My problem is destroying a perfectly good lampshade and finding a place to put my finsihed clip it when its done. I have no space, but... maybe if I had a huge clip it I could have more space... hmmm.

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The fabric is cut off the shade, relatively easy to do but kind of sad. I picked up this shade at a thrift shop. They had lots of candlesticks at the thrift shop too, this one came from my hutch.